> Make it clear you are approachable and that asking questions is expected. For the first few weeks, work closely with them in the style you want them to follow.. they usually adapt very fast once they feel safe to do so.

Very true. I’ve hired (super cheap) engineering talent and this is the key to getting a project to run the way a westerner expects; where everyone is constantly open to challenging each other, where everyone can bring ideas to the table, and where there’s no such thing as a stupid question. I’ve done this during a big phase of time others locally shunning this huge talent pool as the results were crappy/unpredictable. Even to the point they’ll hire local for 100x the cost. It’s just a management problem though and a pretty simple one at that. The other thing is if you train them in your style, keep using them on the next project if you can. It compounds if you have the ability to work with them over a longer time. You have to be very insistent that you’re not proposing the best solution at expect them as engineers to point out any opportunities for improvement. If something later has to be rebuilt or isn’t working well, sometimes it’s good (if it makes sense, case by case) to do a post mortem and understand why the version 2 wasn’t built during the version 1. I think that helps them really understand it in a concrete way if they’re struggling with it.

In any case, I’d much rather take a budget for 1 local dev and spend it on a whole team of Indians and take on the management burden if it means retaining more equity or profits or building something I otherwise wouldn’t do myself due to scale.